Irken Scourge
by BioKraze
Summary: Captured by a team of human soldiers working for X-COM, Invader Zim learns at last the meaning of true helplessness...
1. The Capture

**Invader Zim_, its concepts and personalities are copyrighted by Nickelodeon/Viacom. _X-COM: UFO Defense_, its concepts and personalities are copyrighted by Atari, Inc. I, _BioKraze_, own nothing save the original plot of this fanfiction and the Nanex Imperiuum. Please ask me first if you wish to use the Nanex Imperiuum in your stories._**

___The sleek craft rested in the middle of a street. Ten soldiers were scattered about the neighbourhood, seeking a single enemy. Each of the soldiers knew that capturing this alien would be the key to winning the war that mankind was fighting once more. A single alien versus almost eight billion humans. They had learned about the alien from a dying man, an investigator of the supernatural who had devoted his whole life to defending his race in a time when humans looked the other way. Now, before the alien scourge could take the planet by surprise, the humans had to capture the agent that had lived within their society for almost nine years..._

It wasn't a game anymore. They were trying to kill me. I could no longer feel secure anywhere on Earth. They would find me eventually. My only hope was to evade them for as long as I could. They would surely win the war, but as long as I stayed free, I could keep winning the battle. Two of their number had already been wounded by glancing shots from my pulse cannon. Their wounds would surely be painful, but they would survive to fight another day. I could rely on no other person. I was utterly alone, abandoned by the others. It was a good thing that I had destroyed my base before I began the real war...

I had no allies. My rival had seen to that almost three years before. First my dysfunctional android, then my doomsday assistant. The first had sacrificed himself to save my life, taking a ten millimetre slug to the chest before exploding in a shower of shrapnel that took the lives of three bystanders. The second had blown himself up, along with half a city block. The blast had ensured that I wouldn't have to worry about my rival or his family again. Yet, somehow, he had found others to fight on for him. These humans were smarter, more prepared for the war than I expected. They knew how to fight aliens. They knew how to fight aliens and win. I wondered where they learned their tactics from...

I ducked behind a building, silently thanking the Mother for my short height. For once in my life, being a little above three feet worked to my advantage. I checked the charge on my pulse cannon. I needed every advantage I could get. The charge was almost empty. Three shots from now, my weapon would be no more than a fancy club. I had to make my shots count.

The sound of armoured feet alerted me to the humans. I held my breath and aimed down the alleyway. A shadow drew closer. I counted to three, then squeezed off a shot. The human passed into my line of sight before the pulse of energy slammed into his side. He twisted in agony, half his stomach vapourised by the powerful blast. The stench of burning flesh mixed with the smell of ionised atmosphere, and I almost gagged. Blood gushed from the massive torso wound, and the human's pupils contracted as he recognised his mortality. He collapsed, his blood still spilling from the partially cauterised fatal wound, and I knew that he would not rise again. I ran, trying to hide again before the others found their dead ally.

I ran behind a fence, pausing to take stock. Two shots left. I looked to the sides. No humans. I sighed in relief. I heard a gasp come from somewhere behind the fence. I cringed. They had heard! What to do, what to do...? I ran for the other side of the fence when I tripped over a rock. I saw a glimpse of blue steel.

"There it is!" A shadow loomed over me. I turned over and saw an armoured human. His rifle was slung over his back. This, I thought, was a good thing. Unfortunately, the long staff he held was a very bad thing. Grinning ferally, he raised the two foot long rod and swung down hard.

The last thing I felt before I saw the void of unconsciousness was a rather painful electric shock...


	2. The Prisoner

_The sleek craft cruised at low altitude, the twin engines silently screaming into the wind. Minutes later, the craft was being tended to in its subterranean hangar, as its precious cargo was unloaded. The stunned alien was quickly placed into a containment cell. It was several hours later that the creature returned to the world of the waking, and three hours still before it realised the situation it was in. It knew that it was as good as dead. Only the humans' interest in the extraterrestrial being kept it from death. If the humans had learned more from the dying investigator, perhaps they could have been more prepared than they were..._

I woke to find myself lying on a cold metal floor. The room I was in had the bare essentials: a chair and a metal cot bolted to the walls. The walls themselves were blue steel, and the door had a strange symbol on it. I tried the door, knowing that it was locked. I felt a sharp pain as I touched it, and pulled my fingers back. I was trapped. I decided to see if the humans had covered all the bases. My transceiver sprung from my Pak, and I tried to hail the Crescent. A loud wash of static was my only responce. I unfolded my spider legs, and tried to blast the door apart. The door absorbed the laser energy. The humans had indeed figured all the angles. I was impressed.

Sitting in the chair, I had noticed that I wasn't the first guest here. The chair had many scratches on it, and the walls had a gouge or two in them. The cloying stench of death and misery was evident in the air, mixed with the penetrating smell of disinfectant. Despite the humans' attempts to keep the cell clean, the old stains of green and purple blood could still be seen on the blue steel walls. I noticed that somebody, or something, had scrawled a message in some alien script. I read it, realising that it was the written language of the ancient Nanex. The archaic script had faded almost to the point of illegibility, but I could still make it out:

_Varia Tanso Empria._

The Imperiuum Forever.

It seemed that the Nanex had found Earth before the Irkens had. I stared at the symbol inscribed on the door, a yellow circle with an orange X painted through it. Suddenly it clicked. The X-COM Project! The humans had fought the Nanex twice, and won both times. I had stumbled across records from the X-COM Project during my search for the Swollen Eyeball Net's central servers. Was Dib a descendant of an X-COM operative? Maybe Membrane had a parent who worked in the labs. Maybe Dib or Gaz were Mutates, creatures produced by splicing human DNA with alien samples. I looked at my room further, and noticed a small speaker near the doorway. Hoping that it was a two-way design, I decided to release my pent-up frustrations by using my preferred method: ranting.

"Release me! Release me or suffer the-" A human's voice began to echo about in the cell. I recognised the voice as that of a female. Judging from the accent, I guessed that she was British. Her accent reminded me of Tak's accent...

"You speak English, alien?" The human seemed surprised. I know I certainly was...


	3. The Rebellion

_The alien that the team brought back had caused a significant amount of damage; two severely wounded and three dead. It was brought in and thrown in an old Alien Containment cell, where the atmospheric generator had pumped in a perfect mixture of Terran gasses. The alien, it seemed, could adapt to its situation. It was dressed in a torn magenta tunic, black gloves and boots. The team needed as much information as they could get on this vile creature. Thus, they assigned the station's best Xenobiologist to interrogate it...and perhaps conduct an autopsy if it proved uncompliant..._

The alien spoke perfect English, as if it had lived on Earth its entire life. From the voice, I could guess that it was male, but perhaps no more sexually evolved than the other species I had learned about. If it spoke English, then it could understand my questions. This would be easier than I had first estimated.

"Eh? Of COURSE I do, filthy EARTH-STINK!" It seemed my little alien had an attitude problem. I sat down in the chair beside the door and switched the console to record mode. Taking out a notepad and a pencil, I began asking it the standard questions.

"Alien, your compliance with my questions will determine the nature of your treatment. Do you have a name?"

The alien must have been self-important, for he literally screamed his name.

"I AM ZIM!" I scratched out the words "Subject A15" and wrote "Zim" beside them.

"Thank you, Zim. Now, we can do this one of two ways. I can keep you locked in the cell, or I can release you and speak with you directly. Since you seem to understand humans somewhat, I will let you choose."

Several seconds passed before Zim spoke again. "Let me out and I'll talk..." He sounded resigned. I almost felt sorry for the alien. I picked up a data disc and reviewed the label printed upon it. The disc was from Dib Selane, the son of the famous inventor Membrane Selane and a member of the Swollen Eyeball Network. The tiny disc held everything Dib had learned about Zim singlehandedly, culled from almost nine years of personal war against this tiny alien invader. Grabbing a stun rod from the table and flicking the power switch on, I placed the disc in a coat pocket and pressed the door unlock button. I stood before the opened door, waiting to see if Zim would submit or if he would strike.

He chose the opportunity to strike. From his back, four metal appendages unfolded and locked in a rectangular shape. The tips began to glow with an unhealthy green light, and I barely ducked the blast of laser energy that the legs projected. I held the stun rod tightly and swept it under Zim's legs, hoping to strike him unconscious. Luck was on my side, for the alien fell to the floor with a grunt. The four metal legs retracted into his back once more, and I shuddered involuntarily. I took the data disc out of my pocket and looked at it. Was I really _this_ unprepared? My thoughts began racing. I needed some time to think.

I took a deep breath and, picking up Zim's prone form, threw the rebellious alien back into his holding cell. I locked the door again and keyed the threat level to red. I leaned against the blue walls of the containment facility and closed my eyes. I knew too little about this creature. I had to know more, and I had to learn it soon. The disc remained in my pocket, the key to solving this mystery. It was now or never. I sat in a chair and, taking the disc in hand, inserted it into the media slot. The computer began to load all the data that our unlikely saviour had gathered.

As I looked at the screens and saw what only Dib Selane had seen in his generation, I became aware...and I grew angry. How had Zim managed to hide under humanity's collective nose for so long? What was so wrong with the locals that they ignored the presence of such an alien scourge for almost a decade? I skimmed the data files and learned more about this alien, this...Irken. I came to learn Zim like Dib had known him. It took several hours to absorb and digest the massive amount of knowledge Dib had collected over the years, but I was ready sooner than I could believe. If what Dib had said about the Irkens and their galactic empire was true, then I had to act fast with Zim. The autopsy would come later, but I needed to get in the Irken's head, to learn how he saw the world. How he saw mankind. What Zim felt and saw would certainly be the key to defeating the Irkens when they came to destroy our world.

I repeated a mantra that many of the Xenobiologists had taken up, the unwritten code that some anonymous thinker had spoken long ago. Simple and direct, the sentence held everything we agents had learned in training and field work.

_The devil you know is far less fearsome than the one you don't..._


	4. The Infiltration

_The alien lay in the containment cell for a short while before it came around and back to the conscious world. It sat on the lone chair bolted to the floor. It had had only one chance to defeat the human that had interrogated it, and the alien had failed. Now, it was unsure of its fate. Would the autopsy come after so many hours, or would it be interrogated once more? From behind the reinforced access hatch, the alien could hear the clicking of metal boots upon the cold blue floor. It shuddered with the very memory of how those human soldiers, clad in blue armour, had defeated it so easily where others had failed..._

The stupid scientist was there, but now she had company. Two soldiers, grim-faced and seeming angry, stood shoulder to shoulder before her. One of the soldiers carried a long staff, just like the ones used on my body before. I was surprised my Pak survived the shocks they delivered. The other soldier carried what looked like a long tube with a small glass globe attached to it. The globe was partially covered with some purple matter on one end. What was this? A weapon or a tool? The scientist herself carried a lavender orb about the size of my head. She seemed to concentrate on the orb, and I felt the prickling of something strange in the back of my head.

After some thirty seconds, the scientist spoke. "I can't get anything from his brain." The soldiers looked stunned. I grinned in victory, only to have the grin fall from my face as she continued. "I do know, though, that these 'Irkens' are vitally dependent on their backpods, or Paks, to live and think. If the Probe could interface with a Sectopod or Cyberdisc, could it interface with Zim's Pak?"

The soldier to her left snorted. "Most likely, Doctor Gallagher. We've run some additional tests with these Probes." He paused. "Zim? What a stupid name. Sounds like something I'd name my dog..." He chuckled at his insult. Oooh, how I would make these humans pay for their insolence! And more...wait...how did that stupid scientist know about my Pak? How did she know I was an Irken, when I hadn't even...it must've been Dib!

All thoughts of the wretched human were wiped from my mind as the scientist known only as Gallagher probed me again with her orb, this time locking with my Pak. It was only ten seconds before she dropped the orb, screaming in pain. I smiled. A mind probe, then? Not as powerful as that witch Tak's psionic enhancements...psionic...enhancements...?

No! Nanex technology! Curse the X-COM Project to Dirt! They had access to the Imperiuum's tech base! I should have known! The soldier with the odd purple device didn't even need to see where I was before my Pak was probed again, this time by a hardened human soldier's mind. A device that could amplify psionic talent in people? Just like Tak's ocular enhancements, but portable? How had these stinkbeasts managed to devise such a horrific device?

The soldier stared at me, the purple globe glowing a bright magenta. His mind ripped into mine, and soon my secrets were spilling from my Pak like light from a Meekrob's corpse. My smeeting day, my encoding, all the training... He searched farther and faster, obviously skilled at reading minds. My days as a researcher, the death of Miyuki, the death of Spork... Faster and faster he searched... Devastis, Irk, Foodcourtia, Conventia...Earth...no!

He locked on like a Ring Cutter's fusion bombs and held fast. Within mere minutes, he had what he needed. He turned and spoke to the scientist, but I heard his words as if through a fog. I was barely conscious of myself, could barely bring myself to resist. The soldier handed the psionic amplifier to Gallagher, who held it with seemingly greedy hands; I couldn't tell in my mental fog. She spoke to me, a simple command I would have ignored if thinking under my own power. But I had been mentally dominated. Utterly enthralled.

Mind controlled...

"Now, Zim, tell us what you think of the humans. Tell us everything. Don't leave a thing out, now..."

I smiled, a slow, lazy smile on my blissed-out features. "Of course. I'll tell you _everything..._"


End file.
